N° 60 : Mary, Mediatrix of All Graces

Newsletter n°60 (3 October 2017)

Dear friends,

The dialogue during the apparition on the 13th of September, as reported by Lucia in her fourth memoir, does not include all of Our Lady’s words. In fact, Lucia never claimed that her memoirs were a comprehensive account of the apparitions. Thus, certain facts are only known to us through the initial interrogations, facts which Sister Lucia did not always judge necessary to include in her memoirs.

In this regard, Father De Marchi, a missionary of the Consolata of Turin, who exercised his ministry at Fatima for about ten years, did something very precious: during the course of his stay there, he gathered statements from witnesses (most of them illiterate) to the apparitions, statements which he put together in a very important book: Era uma senhora mais brilhante que o sol. (Title of the French edition: Témoignages sur les apparitions de Fatima). Here is what he reports regarding the apparition on the 13th of September. We only quote the part concerning the dialogue with the Holy Virgin, but the chapter relates numerous details on the phenomena which accompanied the apparition that day. This apparition was one which combined the greatest number of visible and audible signs of the presence of the Holy Virgin (see newsletter n°10).

The children finally arrived near the holm oak and Lucia, as usual, asked everyone to say the Rosary with her. Everyone, rich and poor, kneeled and responded aloud to the Rosary said by the little shepherd. The prayer had not finished when the little ones stood up to scan the horizon. They saw the lightning. A few moments later Our Lady was before them, on the little holm oak.

- What do you want of me? asked, as usual, Lucia.- Continue to say the Rosary every day to bring about an end to the war! replied Our Lady. In October, Our Lord, Our Lady of Sorrows and Our Lady of Carmel, and Saint Joseph with the Child Jesus will also come to bless the world.

She adds:- God is pleased with your sacrifices, but He does not want you to sleep with the cord. Only wear it during the day.- I have petitions for many things, said Lucia. A little girl who is deaf … Wont you heal her?- She will improve within the year.

But there are other requests confided to Lucia: conversions, healings …- Yes, said the Virgin, some I will heal; others I will not, because Our Lord does not trust them.

We should give serious thought to Our Lady’s last phrase.

The Holy Virgin begins by saying: “Some I will heal”. Thus, God granted Her a great power: He gave Her the power to heal our infirmities.

Then, the Holy Virgin adds: “ … others I will not, because Our Lord does not trust them.” After the “Some I will heal”, we would have expected: “others I will not, because I do not trust them.” But that is not what she said. By saying that Our Lord does not trust them, Our Lady recognises that it is Her Son who accords these graces; She only dispenses them.

Thereby, in a few words, Our Lady enunciates a great truth: by saying “I will heal them”, She indicates that, according to God’s will, She is the Mediatrix of All Graces. And by saying “Our Lord does not trust them”, She specifies that it is not Herself, but Her Divine Son who is the source of these graces. But it pleased Divine Providence that the dispenser of graces, acquired by the merits of the Passion and the Cross of Jesus Christ, should be Our Lady.

How is it that God gave such power to His Mother? Father Joseph de Sainte Marie explains it in the following way: “The mediatrix or intermediary that She is, is inseparable from the One in whose name she speaks. God’s will has become Mary’s will, because the will of Mary, the Virgin of the Fiat, of perfect obedience, was never other than that of God.”

In this dialogue of the 13th of September, Our Lady gives us another teaching: some of the ill won’t be healed, because Our Lord does not trust them. Graces, therefore, are not distributed indiscriminately. God only gives His graces if He trusts in us, in other words, if we pray with perseverance and not only when we are in need. God loves us and wants us to love Him in return for what He is, and not for what we want from Him.

Moreover, if we only turn to God when we are troubled, if our fervour depends on how many problems we have, why be surprised, when he sends them to us to elicit our love? What other way does He have to capture our attention? On the contrary, if we belong to Him as much in joy as in sorrow, His Father’s Heart will be inclined to leave us joyful as we belong to Him as much in one state as in the other. Be faithful to Him and show Him that He can trust in us, that we will continue to pray, even if He heals us ! And ask Our Lady for the grace to always be faithful, in gladness as in tribulation.

The First Saturday of the Month

Saturday will be the fifth of the second series of first Saturdays organised for the centenary of the apparitions. Moreover, this last Saturday of the series falls on the day of the Feast of Our Lady of the Rosary. We have therefore a double reason for not missing our communion of reparation on this day.

And, so as to show to Our Lady our will to do as She asks, we should carefully observe the conditions of this devotion (see the document on the First Saturdays of the Month), in particular by undertaking them in a spirit of reparation (see newsletter n°30).

Also, don’t forget to offer this communion to ask for the grace that the Holy Father consecrate Russia to the Immaculate Heart, respecting the requests of Our Lady, in particular that He orders a solemn and public act of reparation and that he approves and recommends the devotion of reparation of the First Saturdays of the month.

The month of the Rosary

The month of the Rosary has begun. In this centenary of the apparition, during the course of which our Lady gave Her name: “I am Our Lady of the Rosary”, we should try to say our Rosary every day. It is one of the most beautiful ways of celebrating this centenary, because in each of the six apparitions in 1917 Our Lady asked that we say the Rosary every day. (See newsletter n°31).

Letter of support for Cardinal Burke

One month on, we still have no news of the letter of support sent to Cardinal Burke (see newsletter n°52) on the 28th of August. After investigation, it seems that it has been lost somewhere in the transfer between the French and the Italian postal services, as the trace of the letter stops there. So, we will send a copy.

In union of prayer in the Immaculate Heart of Mary.Yves de Lassus,Cap Fatima 2017.